{"id":1791,"date":"2025-07-02T00:51:52","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T00:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/?p=1791"},"modified":"2025-07-02T00:51:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T00:51:52","slug":"u-s-china-rare-earth-deal-shows-beijings-dominance-of-crucial-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/?p=1791","title":{"rendered":"U.S.-China Rare-Earth Deal Shows Beijing&#8217;s Dominance of Crucial Sector"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Welcome to\u00a0<em>Foreign Policy<\/em>\u2019s China Brief.<\/p>\n<p>The highlights this week: China agrees to <strong>rare-earth deal<\/strong> with the United States, the <strong>Dalai Lama<\/strong> prepares to announce succession plans, and a new <strong>video game<\/strong> strikes a nerve among Chinese men.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Welcome to\u00a0<em>Foreign Policy<\/em>\u2019s China Brief.<\/p>\n<p>The highlights this week: China agrees to <strong>rare-earth deal<\/strong> with the United States, the <strong>Dalai Lama<\/strong> prepares to announce succession plans, and a new <strong>video game<\/strong> strikes a nerve among Chinese men.<\/p>\n<div class=\"newsletter-unit-signup--shortcode-fallback\">\n<h2 class=\"dek-heading\">\n                <a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/category\/china-brief\/\">Sign up<\/a>  to receive China Brief in your inbox every Tuesday.            <\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<form data-shortcode-newsletter=\"china_brief\" class=\"newsletter-unit-signup newsletter-unit-signup--shortcode email-capture--step-1 newsletter-unit-signup--shortcode-china_brief\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-china_brief newsletter-shortcode-china_brief\">\n<div class=\"show-on-email-capture--signed-up hide-from-newsletter-subscriber newsletter-unit-signup--shortcode--container\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-unit newsletter-row\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-china_brief\">\n<h2 class=\"dek-heading\">Sign up to receive China Brief in your inbox every Tuesday.<\/h2>\n<p>\n                        <button class=\"button\">Sign Up<\/button>\n                    <\/p>\n<div class=\"grid--flex newsletter-china_brief newsletter-signup-container\" role=\"group\" aria-label=\"China Brief sign up form\" tabindex=\"0\">\n<div class=\"buttons\">\n<div class=\"hide-from-newsletter-subscriber privacy-policy-container\">\n<div class=\"privacy-policy-acknowledge\">\n<p><small>By submitting your email, you agree to the <a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/privacy\/\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/termsofuse\/\" target=\"_blank\">Terms of Use<\/a> and to receive email correspondence from us. You may opt out at any time.<\/small><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\n    <label for=\"email-china_brief\">Enter your email<\/label><br \/>\n    <input type=\"email\" name=\"email\" class=\"hide-from-reg hide-from-sub\" id=\"email-china_brief\" aria-required=\"true\" required=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>    <button class=\"button button--signup \" data-newsletter-id=\"china_brief\" data-sourceid=\"In-article unit\" type=\"submit\"><br \/>\n      <span class=\"sign-up-text\">Sign Up<\/span><br \/>\n      <span class=\"loading-text\">Loading&#8230;<\/span><br \/>\n    <\/button>\n  <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/form>\n<hr\/>\n<h3>China, U.S. Agree to Rare-Earth Deal<\/h3>\n<p>Last Friday, China <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/06\/27\/business\/us-china-trade-deal-agreement-signed-intl-hnk\">signaled<\/a> that it would approve a new deal allowing the export of its rare earths to the United States, marking a breakthrough following earlier U.S.-China talks in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.swissinfo.ch\/eng\/global-trade\/china-and-us-agree-to-lower-tariffs-after-talks-in-geneva\/89302301\">Geneva<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/06\/10\/business\/us-china-trade-talks-london-agreement-intl-hnk\">London<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. manufacturers need <a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2025\/07\/01\/rare-earths-us-china-trade-mineral-supply-chain\/\">rare earths<\/a> for a wide range of products, from computer screens to lasers. And China <a href=\"https:\/\/www.csis.org\/analysis\/what-chinas-ban-rare-earths-processing-technology-exports-means\">produces<\/a> roughly 60 percent and processes more than 90 percent of the global rare-earth supply. Beijing\u2019s decision to exercise this leverage over Washington in recent months has paid off, as China analyst Scott Kennedy <a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2025\/06\/16\/china-rare-earths-trade-war-deal-trump\/\">writes<\/a> in <em>Foreign Policy<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>But will Beijing\u2019s pressure give it a permanent hold over Washington, or will it finally prompt the United States to rebuild a long-neglected supply chain at home?<\/p>\n<p>China\u2019s dominance of the rare-earth sector is not a result of geological fortune but of economic advantage. Rare earths, despite the name, are abundant worldwide. But following China\u2019s opening up and modernization in 1978, Chinese rare-earth firms soon became the cheapest and most popular option. From 1978 to 1995, China\u2019s production of rare earths grew by roughly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sciencehistory.org\/education\/classroom-activities\/role-playing-games\/case-of-rare-earth-elements\/history-future\/#:~:text=Between%201978%20and%201995%20China's,investment%20regulators%20in%20both%20nations.\">40 percent<\/a> each year.<\/p>\n<p>Early on, this growth was mostly bottom-up, but it was later encouraged by the government. Chinese scientists <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defenseone.com\/ideas\/2018\/11\/china-beating-us-rare-earths-game\/152674\/\">filed<\/a> for their first international rare-earth patent in 1983, and by the mid-1990s, Chinese technology was competing with cutting-edge products in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Chinese firms acquired foreign assets, such as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heritage.org\/asia\/report\/magnequench-cfius-and-chinas-thirst-us-defense-technology\">U.S. firm Magnequench<\/a> in 1995. Meanwhile, the spread of personal computing and then the mobile phone created massive demand for rare earths from the 1990s onward.<\/p>\n<p>The United States has long been aware of the problems posed by Chinese preeminence in the sector. After China <a href=\"https:\/\/cepr.org\/voxeu\/columns\/revisiting-china-japan-rare-earths-dispute-2010\">temporarily<\/a> slowed the export of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/09\/23\/business\/global\/23rare.html\">rare earths<\/a> to Japan in 2010, it prompted the reopening of California\u2019s Mountain Pass rare-earth mine to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/04\/22\/business\/energy-environment\/22rare.html\">provide<\/a> an alternative to Chinese companies amid rising demands.<\/p>\n<p>For more than a decade, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/06\/29\/us-china-rare-earth-minerals-metals-geopolitics-power.html\">pundits<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defense.gov\/News\/News-Stories\/Article\/Article\/3700059\/dod-looks-to-establish-mine-to-magnet-supply-chain-for-rare-earth-materials\/\">strategists<\/a> have called to revive the U.S. rare-earth industry to reduce reliance on China. But such a large-scale project will be <a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2025\/07\/01\/rare-earths-us-china-trade-mineral-supply-chain\/\">difficult to pull off<\/a>. In 2010, the U.S. Government Accountability Office <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gao.gov\/assets\/gao-10-617r.pdf\">estimated<\/a> that it would take up to 15 years to rebuild a domestic rare-earth supply chain.<\/p>\n<p>In the 15 years since then, Mountain Pass\u2014whose previous owners went bankrupt in 2015\u2014is still the only <a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2023\/08\/15\/japan-rare-earth-minerals-green-transition-china-supply-chains\/\">facility producing<\/a> and refining rare earths in the entire country. U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s past efforts to rebuild the industry <a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2023\/06\/23\/america-rare-earths-industry-china\/\">flopped<\/a>, and in his second term the president seems more committed to <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/climatechange\/2025\/04\/29\/100-days-of-trump-2-0-the-inflation-reduction-act\/\">dismantling<\/a> his predecessor\u2019s energy legacy than rebuilding anything.<\/p>\n<p>Though China doesn\u2019t have to fear a restoration of U.S. rare-earth production anytime soon, it\u2019s not taking any risks. A key part of any industry is personnel, and China has leveraged its lack of political freedoms to maintain its dominance in this respect.<\/p>\n<p>As the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/world\/china-to-block-its-rare-earth-experts-from-spilling-their-secrets-8d69b75f\">reported<\/a> last week, Chinese rare-earth experts are being tracked and monitored closely. Some are having their passports confiscated and held by their employers\u2014an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.voanews.com\/a\/china-s-increasing-passport-controls-evoke-mao-era\/7827418.html\">increasingly common<\/a> practice in China today.<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<h3>What We\u2019re Following<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Thai political crisis.<\/strong> China has expressed a desire for \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thestandard.com.hk\/china-news\/article\/305829\/China-says-it-hopes-Thailand-will-maintain-stability\">stability<\/a>\u201d in Thailand after the Thai Constitutional Court <a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2025\/07\/01\/thailand-prime-minister-suspended-cambodia-border-hun-sen\/\">suspended<\/a> Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra on Tuesday. The court accused Paetongtarn of an ethics breach when she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2025\/07\/01\/nx-s1-5453000\/thailand-prime-minister-paetongtarn-shinawatra-suspension\">called<\/a> former Cambodian leader (and family friend) Hun Sen during a recent border crisis, promising to do whatever he needed. Hun Sen later <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/06\/19\/asia\/thailand-cambodia-border-dispute-paetongtarn-intl-hnk\">released<\/a> the tape and publicly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/week-asia\/people\/article\/3316366\/why-paetongtarns-uncle-hun-sen-attacking-her-amid-thai-cambodian-tensions\">disparaged<\/a> Paetongtarn, but this move was likely driven by domestic political needs rather than geopolitical demands.<\/p>\n<p>Thailand is close to the United States but increasingly leans toward China. Paetongtarn\u2019s family\u2014a political dynasty that has played a major role in Thai politics since the 2000s<strong>\u2014<\/strong>are of Chinese descent.<\/p>\n<p>Paetongtarn herself has attempted to improve ties with China by supporting largely unsuccessful crackdowns on online organized crime rings operating along the Thai-Myanmar border that are known for kidnapping and scamming Chinese citizens. Her suspension will prompt some concern in Beijing, but anyone who succeeds her is unlikely to make any radical changes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dalai Lama announcement.<\/strong> The Dalai Lama is expected to formally address plans for his succession this week, ahead of his 90th birthday on Sunday. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual and, historically, secular leader of Tibet, and his position is famously transferred via reincarnation. China, which claims to have <a href=\"https:\/\/english.news.cn\/20250630\/8cc9bbb36bf24392994946dcd3c6eb1b\/c.html\">historical ownership<\/a> of Tibet, views the Dalai Lama as a separatist and says it will choose his successor.<\/p>\n<p>Beijing\u2019s claim has its roots in the Qing empire, which ruled over China, Manchuria, Mongolia, parts of modern Central Asia, and Tibet from 1644 to 1911. Though Qing control of Tibet was always weak, the Qing asserted the right to control the Dalai Lama\u2019s reincarnation using the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/tibet.net\/the-golden-urn\/\">Golden Urn<\/a>,\u201d where the names of potential successors are put into a jar and drawn at random.<\/p>\n<p>The Dalai Lama, meanwhile, has said his successor will be born outside China and urged his followers to reject the successor chosen by Beijing.<\/p>\n<hr\/>\n<h3>FP\u2019s Most Read This Week<\/h3>\n<hr\/>\n<h3>Tech and Business<\/h3>\n<p><strong>COVID-19 report.<\/strong> Last Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a new report on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report is ultimately inconclusive but <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.who.int\/media\/docs\/default-source\/documents\/epp\/sago\/independent-assessment-of-the-origins-of-sars-cov-2-by-sago.pdf?sfvrsn=b0f90ad4_4&amp;download=true\">leans heavily<\/a> toward the hypothesis that the virus was transmitted via the wildlife trade. However, it does not dismiss the possibility of a laboratory leak, a theory the Trump administration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/18\/science\/trump-covid-website-lab-leak.html\">has pushed<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>China will likely take issue with the report\u2019s dismissal of the hypothesis that the virus entered the country via <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/pandemics-beijing-global-trade-coronavirus-pandemic-china-28671d69256d84001a471876a6bc4077\">cold storage<\/a>, a popular theory that displaces Chinese blame for the outbreak. WHO also emphasized that it received effectively no cooperation from China in its investigation, heightening a break that began when Beijing stymied the agency\u2019s earlier investigations.<\/p>\n<p>After the outbreak of the first SARS epidemic in 2002, China promised to close key <a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC7141584\/\">live-animal markets<\/a> but failed to enforce its own regulations, making the likely outbreak of the pandemic at a Wuhan wet market very embarrassing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Misogynistic video game. <\/strong>A new video game has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-06-27\/china-s-revenge-on-gold-diggers-video-game-fuels-sexism-debate?embedded-checkout=true\">rocketed<\/a> to the top of China\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/news.qq.com\/rain\/a\/20250624A04YJ600\">charts<\/a> and struck a nerve among Chinese men. <em>Revenge on Gold Diggers<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sixthtone.com\/news\/1017276\">follows<\/a> a male protagonist seeking revenge against women whom the game portrays as taking advantage of vulnerable men online to drain them of their assets.<\/p>\n<p>The game is a reflection of broader themes circulating the Chinese internet. These online spaces are dominated by female influencers who try to sell sexually charged content without drawing the ire of censors. These women have huge followings and generous supporters online, but they have also generated anger among Chinese men, well chronicled in Hao Wu\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/peoples-republic-of-desire\/\">documentary<\/a> <em>People\u2019s Republic of Desire<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The rise of organized crime cartels that target Chinese men for online scams has contributed to that anger but also produced cases in which women have been targeted after being <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sixthtone.com\/news\/1015186\">falsely accused<\/a> of acting as gold diggers.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2025\/07\/01\/china-united-states-rare-earths-trade-deal-agreement\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Welcome to\u00a0Foreign Policy\u2019s China Brief. The highlights this week: China agrees to rare-earth deal with the United States, the Dalai Lama prepares to announce succession plans, and a new video game strikes a nerve among Chinese men. Welcome to\u00a0Foreign Policy\u2019s China Brief. The highlights this week: China agrees to rare-earth deal with the United States, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1791","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politcical-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}